Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Listen to Shahrifah Zohra ― Darren Nah

Listen to Shahrifah Zohra ― Darren Nah

January 16, 2013

Malaysian Insider-Side Views

JAN 16 ― Malaysians all over the globe are pouring spiteful
derision at an unknown, supercilious lady, Shahrifah Zohra, whose
bubbling partisan affinities and inability to address the contentious
issues posed by a contrarian student, Bawani KS (now an overnight
sensation), led her to do what all noisome vixens do: Raise a whole lot
of malarkey and hullabaloo about monkeys, cows, goats and, yes, even
sharks.
Her bestial [pertaining to beasts] diatribe came in an interminable,
rapid fire succession. Shahrifah Zohra went from calling Ambiga (a
Malaysian public figure fighting for free and fair elections) an
anarchist, to asking the student, Bawani, to leave the Malaysia given
Bawani’s dissatisfaction, and to then doling out Galaxy Notes
gratuitously to a body of passive, browbeaten students who was
indifferent to the whole Orwellian mis-en-scene, and merely parroted
affirmatives and clapped in support of both sides. In Shahrifah Zohra’s
deluge of half-baked, quasi-educated Malay-English creole verbiage, many
might mistake her fulmination to be a truculent message sponsored by
the Selangor Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).
However, Shahrifah Zohra does artfully credit Ambiga, the
“anarchist,” with one thing: enlightening Malaysians to human rights,
which in this case, it so happens to be the right of free speech.
Shahrifah Zohra, of course, in trumping the right of every individual to
free speech, does not hesitate to remove her opponent’s (Bawani’s)
microphone, and quickly proceeds to up the volume-ante to an audibly
deranging holler.
Aside from the (hopefully) non-permanent ear damage that Shahrifah
Zohra’s twenty-minute harangue has caused, it is very odd that Shahrifah
Zohra should undermine her own case by saying that “it is my human
right to speak, and you to listen” (paraphrased).
Shahrifah Zohra‘s logic is a non sequitur. If everyone has a human
right to speak, it does not follow that every human has a right to not
speak when another speaks. In other words, you can’t stop me from
speaking simply by saying that you have a right to speak. We can both
speak at the same time, though no one would be listening. (Bawani by
this time has gone back to her seat, probably fatigued by her obtuse
opponent. Stupidity can be very tiring!).
In fact, Bawani’s real contention was with the lack of free education
in Malaysia. Or more pointedly, the lack of quality education in
Malaysia was her main complaint. Which good citizen does not complain
about her own nation, not to bring it down, but to build it better?
Again, Shahrifah Zohra’s non sequitur logic resurfaces, this time in
international fury! She beseeches Bawani to leave Malaysia and go to
Cuba, Libya and Argentina. Shahrifah Zohra does not mention the United
States, the United Kingdom or Australia, but third-world nations. In her
logic, we’re meant to compare ourselves with Libya. Right. I’m sure you
win a race by running with handicaps.
It is very sad (and here comes my plangent tone) that the Malaysians
in the video were so indifferent. “All the students in this hall,”
Shahrifah Zohra vaunts, “are happy with whatever the government does for
them.” And to a great extent, this is very true. The government does
too much, and the people too little, and this is how we’re silenced.
People like Shahrifah Zohra can speak with such temerity at another
co-citizen simply because, she knows (and we know) that the Malaysian
government can take away whatever it has given; free education, petrol
subsidies, free this and free that. One can even say that Bawani, by
asking for free education, indirectly empowers people like Shahrifah
Zohra!
No one stops to think about the larger picture. No one talks about
the appropriate role of government. Everyone talks about democracy, but
no one talks about mob rule. Everyone wants things free, but no one sees
the hidden charges.
Maybe this article is too harsh on Shahrifah Zohra (now alienated by
her own Party), and too light on Bawani (now an overnight celebrity).
Nevertheless, it is not the individuals that are bad or good, generally,
but most of the time, it is the institutions of our civil and political
life that lead to (wo)men like them.
People are what they are because of their surrounding influences, and
in a nation where dependency is rife, one will always find the haughty
superior and the rapacious dependent; and in a nation of dependent
subjects, one will hardly find free men and responsible individuals.
But these are hard pills to swallow. Who doesn’t want cheap
government goods, government scholarships, government medicine,
government tenders, government schools, government housing? All I can
ask, for those too afraid to find out the truth of the matter, and
prefer attacking Shahrifah Zohra and not the system, is to, “Please
listen.”* Darren Nah reads The Malaysian Insider